


The Care of a Raptor

by Dangerously_Demonic



Series: The Guide to Murder [8]
Category: Jurassic Park - All Media Types, Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Aw murder bby, Gen, high strung raptor, right in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:26:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangerously_Demonic/pseuds/Dangerously_Demonic
Summary: Alpha is a very unusual raptor and as it turns out, the standard raptor care doesn't cut it. After he starts having injuries in the morning, his care team devises a plan to figure out just how he's hurting himself. It leads to one member facing the guilt that he tries to suppress.





	The Care of a Raptor

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place between chapter 3 & 4 of Taming of the Raptor.

Rowan gave Owen a bland look, “Aren’t we a bit old for sleepovers and shit?” The idea of camping out on the walkways over the raptor pen didn’t sound appealing in the least bit. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as if they could really waltz into the pen and put up cameras. Which is why his snarky reply earned him a bit of a glare from the resident raptor trainer. Finally, he held up his hands in defeat.

“Ok, ok. Yeah. I know. It’s important to try to figure out how Alpha’s hurting himself.” It felt weird calling the raptor that, especially when he mentally called him ‘Murder’. It was much more fitting considering how he tended to…Well, murder people. Honestly, Rowan had a few ideas on why Murder was hurting himself, but he hadn’t been able to confirm any of them. It was kind of hard to sneak him out of the pen, as a raptor. Maybe he could convince him to change into a human and sneak him into the staff dorms? That was worth doing. Maybe offer the guy a burger or something.

When evening arrived and Murder had been fed, the two set up their sleeping bags and then left to give the raptor a chance to get used to the new things on the cat walks. The idea was to, hopefully, see him acting ‘naturally’. Once Murder lost interest in staring at the bags and wandered off into the undergrowth to do raptor things, Owen and Rowan snuck back to the sleeping bags and waited. Nightvision goggled helped immensely as they both watched Murder wander the pen.

However, it because clear very quickly that the wandering was very deliberate.

“That’s the third time he’s passed that tree.” Rowan whispered, and Owen made a noise of agreement.

“I think he has a set path. He’s pacing.” Owen replied as he watched the raptor pass under the catwalk and move to walk along one of the outer walls. This continued for the next two hours with Murder following the same path over and over and over at a plodding pace. By the third hour, he was making a figure eight between two trees, shoving himself up against them with his shoulder.

With a sigh, Owen nudged Rowan, “There it is. I don’t know how we can fix that if he’s doing it to himself.”

Rowan just rubbed his face and continued to watch, wordlessly. When Murder finally stopped under a tree, he simply hung his head and swayed it back and forth. Soon, the movement was echoed by his body and his shifted his weight from side to side. This cause Owen to make a soft curse.

“He’s gone neurotic on us. Happens to penned up animals some times. When I was a kid, the zoo near where I lived had elephants, and they just kept them chained up. The elephants just stood there for hours and swayed their heads…Exactly like what he’s doing.” He sighed and pulled the goggles off to clean the sweat off his face. However, he quickly put them back on when Alpha made a noise.

It was a sort of coughing noise that ended in a low noise, followed by a stuttered inhale…Then it repeated, over and over. Owen shot Rowan a confused look, “Ever hear him make that noise before? I’ve never heard that from any raptor.”

Rowan made a negative noise, but combining it with the previous behavior? He had a very, very good idea of what it might be and it didn’t sit well with him. This just made it even more important to talk to Murder and see what was going on. There was very obviously something wrong and Rowan wanted to try to help, even if he didn’t know that it’d help the guilt he felt. While he didn’t know the extent of what was wrong, he still had a very strong suspicion that it was largely his fault. After all, he had been the one to lead Murder to the camp where he’d been captured.

The rest of the night was relatively uneventful. After continuing to make the noises for a short while longer, Murder had gone to the shelter to sleep. Since this was at about 3am, and the morning feeding started at 8am, it meant that if this was his usual routine, Murder was maybe getting four to five hours of sleep. Excluding any naps during the day, which didn’t usually happen.

It took Rowan a few days to get everything put together and for him to time things perfectly. The last thing he wanted was for someone to walk in when Murder was changing. He clutched the plastic bag of clothes and slipped down the short hallway to the shelter. If he was lucky, Murder hadn’t started his routine yet. Thankfully, the raptor hadn’t and was getting a drink from the waterer.

“Pst! Hey!” Once he had Murder’s attention, he held up the bag. “Clothes. If you can change yourself human, I’ll sneak you out of here for a while. I wanna talk to you about some stuff and maybe get you a hamburger.”

Murder stared at him for a moment before he walked to the bars and reached out to make grabby motions at the bag. Rowan hesitated for a brief moment before he handed the bag over. It was swiftly pulled to Murder who seemed to critically look over the contents before making a soft snort.

Truth be told, Rowan about pissed himself when the raptor’s bones started making nightmareish sounding pops and creaks. It was straight up nightmare fuel and made his stomach churn. Despite that, he could only stare as the raptor rapidly twisted down into a human. Once the change was over, he eyed the literal wild man in front of him. Dark, midback length hair and a beard that would be the rival of any stereotypical Appalachian woodsman. What hadn’t changed were the vividly green, reptilian eyes with the soul piercing, intense stare.

Murder shifted his attention to getting dressed. The clothes weren’t a bad fit, even if the shirt felt a slight bit too small. It covered everything important. Rowan hit the button to open the gate. “Come on, we don’t have more than a few hours.”

The trip to the employee dorms was quiet, and with most everyone except the night shift asleep, he was able to sneak Murder into his room pretty easily. Rowan pointed out the bathroom, “You can take a shower, if you want. I think the only place that’s still open right now is pizza. Pepperoni and cheese good?”

The offers were considered by Murder for a moment who gave a slight nod before he headed into the bathroom. Honestly, Rowan wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. He knew the…Creature in the bathroom could easily kill him. Hell, the first time he met the human form was when Murder literally fucking picked him up and slammed him into the ground face first. Not really a nice first meeting, but it certainly drove home the amount of strength that the other had.

After he had called in the pizza, he sat down on his bed and listened to the sound of the shower. He knew nothing about Murder and for all he knew, the guy had been born on Sorna. It was just stupidly obvious that he wasn’t human. Rowan rubbed his face and tried to organize the mental list of questions he wanted to ask. All of them revolved around why Murder was acting the way he was. He just wanted to make things better.

He was drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of the shower stopping, but frowned after several minutes when Murder didn’t leave. Whatever. The guy probably hadn’t seen a bathroom in a while, if at all. It was honestly pretty amazing that he could even speak at all, even if it wasn’t very often. When the door finally opened, Rowan had to do a double take. Apparently, the extra time had been spent on a haircut and heavy beard trim. Now, Murder was sporting shoulder length hair and a very short beard. Probably as short as he could manage without a razor.

God dammit. The murder hobo actually kinda looked good after he was cleaned up.

Rowan shoved that thought out of his mind. Not going to go there. “Uh. Pizza is ordered. I went ahead and got stuffed crust. It should be here pretty soon.”

Murder only nodded and finally sat down in a chair. While he seemed calm and mildly curious, he still fidgeted a bit. Rowan glanced at the wall for a moment, not entirely sure how to even get into asking the questions. Would it be better to wait until after dinner? He was about to speak when a knock on the door broke the silence. Almost jumping to his feet, Rowan got up and went to answer the door. There, he signed the receipt and closed the door. When he turned around Murder was nearly right behind him.

“Jesus! Don’t do that.” His outburst was only given a bland stare.

“I’m hungry.” Murder stated, plainly.

“Yeah, but you can’t fuckin’ sneak up on people like that.” He walked to the table and was unnerved by how Murder shadowed him. After he set the box on the table, he went to fetch paper plates and was absolutely unsurprised to see that Murder had already grabbed a slice of pizza. Well, apparently the guy knew what pizza was. Feeling somewhat unimpressed, he held out the paper plate and then went to get his own slice once the plate had been taken.

They ate in silence, which just gave Rowan more time to think things over. Finally, when most of the pizza had been eaten, he sighed. Might as well just dive into it. “So, uh, you’ve been hurting yourself lately by rubbing on the trees. Why are you doing that?”

Murder only gave him a bland stare. It was already off on a bad foot.

“I want to help you, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

More silence.

Rowan rubbed his face and sighed, “I…Look. I’m sorry, alright? They…They told me that they were after a dinosaur. I didn’t know that they were sending me after a person...thi—that wasn’t in the briefing.” Narrowly, he avoided calling Murder a ‘thing’. That likely wouldn’t have gone well. Still, he seemed to have the other’s attention with how intently he was being stared at.

“I didn’t know about the camp, either. Half the team they sent was the private security people for Jurassic World. I…I was the only contract merc you didn’t kill, and the guy in charge of your capture? Told me that I was just cannon fodder. Long story short. I want to help you. So, please. Tell me how I can make things better for you."

The next five words that Murder spoke caused Rowan’s heart to drop.

“I want to go home.”

"You can't. There's no way for me to get you back. You have to stay in the pen till I can figure out how to get you off the island. How can I make things better?" Rowan cringed at the scowl he was given, but it was the honest truth. There was no way to get Murder to Sorna. Hell, it’d probably be easier to get him to California.

"It's small. There's just walking and I'm always..." Murder struggled for the right word. He still had a grasp of the English language but the years without speaking had atrophied his skills. Had he known nothing about Murder, Rowan would have thought there was something mentally wrong with him...But he knew Murder was intelligent in a very scary way.

"Bored?" Rowan suggested. Murder's head snapped up at the word. 

"Yes. Bored. I'm always bored. There's..." Again he struggled and grasped at the rusted remains of his vocabulary, "..Leaving." He finally stated, flatly. It was the wrong word and he knew it, but the right one was just out of grasp. 

Rowan puzzled for a moment, trying to fit things together. "There's nothing for you to do?"

Again, Murder nodded. More than anything, this just confirmed what Rowan was thinking...But Murder wasn't done speaking.

"The soldiers shoot me, and I wake up confused. I'm..." He hesitated, but had a different expression than frustration. Rather than searching for the right word, he had an unhappy expression as if remembering a bad memory. 

"I'm alone. It hurts." His shoulders sagged and he looked away. For a moment, Rowan didn’t see a person who had mercilessly snapped someone’s neck. Instead, he saw someone who was scared at the sudden and new situation they had been placed into.

Rowan had a very healthy level of wariness in regards to Murder. He'd seen the other kill and main without issue. For a long time, he thought it was aggressive, but now he questioned that thought. Maybe it was all due to fear. It also confirmed his thoughts that the strange sounds Murder had been making were the raptor equivalent of crying. The poor guy was stressed, bored, and lonely.

All of the neurotic behavior made sense in that perspective. The problem was, he couldn't exactly shove a punch of pills down a raptor's throat every day. Did they even make dino prozac? So how the fuck was he going to help an obviously depressed raptor...human...thing?

Rowan finally sighed, “I gotta get you back to the pen.”

Murder’s head popped up and he gave Rowan a wide-eyed stare, “No. I’m not going back. The jungle.” He made a vague gesture.

"Look. I'll try to help you out and find you things to do. It might take me a few days, but you gotta get back. If they figure out you're missing, it'll be worse. I’ve talked them out of giving you a tracking device, but if you ‘escape’ they’ll slap you with one. I wanna let you out more, but you gotta work with me. Please?" Rowan pleaded. Normally, he wouldn't give a rat's ass about someone else's problem...But this was a problem that he'd created entirely. He'd basically turned someone's life completely upside down and they were getting the short end of the stick because of it. The wary and mistrusting look he was given caused him to feel an uncharacteristic stab of regret. But Murder finally nodded.

The trip back to the pen was uneventful and quiet. If anything, Murder seemed a bit curious about the nighttime park. Once back at the pen, Rowan folded up the clothes he was given and cringed at the sound of popping bones behind him. How the fuck did that whole shapeshifting thing work, anyway? When it stopped, he turned around and stared up at the raptor who turned and walked into the open door of the pen. Rowan just sighed and hit the button to close the pen door. What the hell was he going to do?

Rowan spent the next few days researching. Raptors were a pack type animal, and so were humans. Between that and all the different stressors, it wasn't much of a surprise that Murder had issues. Humans could pick up self-destructive habits to cope with stress and depression....Or they could funnel all their attention into mindless activities. The problem here was that Murder didn't have anything to do. So, he had steered himself onto the self-destructive route.

Another issue was that most of the team thought Murder was only a seriously intelligent raptor and not something more. Well, maybe Owen and the head doctor, Kaitlyn, suspected something was up...But he was still limited and it didn’t help that he had no idea what to even offer Murder. Still he brought up the idea to Owen and the doctor of some type of enrichment activities for the raptor, citing the high level of intelligence and how many parrots would develop issues if left alone.

Owen approved of the idea, noting how he had often played with a young Blue as a means of both bonding and training before the younger members of the Raptor Squad had hatched. The doctor had concerns of further stressing the raptor, but agreed that something needed to be done. So, the three of them sat down in the small breakroom and started throwing around ideas on what they could try. The idea forming session continued on into the evening and was only broken up by the muffled, but still sharp crack of thunder. 

"I'd better go make sure that the shelter door was opened after cleaning. That sounds like a bad storm." Rowan commented as he pushed himself away from the table. Owen made a noise of agreement and got up to follow after him. However, they paused at the corner at the sound of the coughing, stuttering noise that they'd both heard a week ago. While Owen still had no idea what it meant, Rowan had a very, very good idea.

He hurried around the corner and wasn't surprised that Murder startled and abruptly shut up...Mostly. His inhaled breathes were still stuttered but his exhalation was more of a muffled grunt, suggesting he was trying to suppress the sound. Murder stared at Rowan for a moment before he made a move to go out into the rain.

"Hey. Hey. No. Look at me." Rowan fought with himself, and tried to choose between going to comfort the creature in front of him or keeping the charade up. He knew Murder wouldn't kill him, at least, didn't think he would. Finally, he bit out a soft curse and slammed his palm against the button that'd open the gate. Behind him, Owen yelled his name. When the gate was open enough, he slipped through and heard the buzz of Owen hitting the button to close it. Murder took a step back and focused on the both of them.

"You're going to get yourself killed."

"No I'm not." Rowan replied as he took a step towards Murder and held out his hand. "Come on. I know you're upset. It's alright."

Murder was tensed and honestly, Rowan wasn't sure if he was going to bolt or attack. After a few long moments, he was close enough to touch Murder's neck. Prior experience had showed that Murder didn't like his head touched, so Rowan stuck to petting and scratching his neck.

"Shh. It's alright. You're not alone." Murder stood there for a moment, the stuttering noise and cough suddenly returning in full force before he slowly sank down to the ground. It was one thing to see it at a distance, but to be right there next to him? It made Rowan's heart break and all the guilt he'd been shoving away came crashing down on him. He'd caused this. He was the one responsible for Murder being taken from everything he knew and being thrown into something hellish. Rowan just glanced at Owen who was lightly chewing on the knuckle of his thumb; an intense but concerned expression on his face. Rowan crouched down and started petting Murder down his neck and back, avoiding the scabbed over injuries on his shoulders.

Murder continued making coughing noise for a few moments before he was only making the stuttered inhaling noises. By the point, Rowan had shifted to sitting down beside him. It was a complete breech of protocol, but he doubted that anyone else really had the balls to go into a raptor pen like this. Finally, Murder seemed to calm and just shifted his head to watch both Rowan and Owen.

"This makes no sense at all. He reacted to what you were saying." Owen glanced behind him at Kaitlyn who had been watching at a distance.

"I've been telling you two that he's not a normal raptor. Wu won't release the genetic tests he ran on Alpha. He just gave me the basics...But one of the guys in the genetics lab is flirty aaaand I managed to get some information. He said that Alpha's a Utahraptor, which we already know...But he said he doesn't know what DNA was used to fill in the damaged part of the genome, or he won’t tell me. I’m not sure which. He also said that there's an extra three amino acids: aspartic acid, arginine, and lysine...They don't serve any purpose, and it's almost like a tag of some sort." She sighed and finally walked over to the bars. "My point is...I think InGen did things on Sorna. I know it sounds crazy, but Owen. You said yourself that everything Alpha does blows what your squad did out of the water."

Owen leaned against the cement wall and glanced between Kaitlyn and Rowan, "You're right. It does sound crazy, but I'm going to be the last person to deny his intelligence. What are you thinking, Kaitlyn?"

"I'm thinking that we keep this between the three of us. Limit Alpha's care team to a set number of people, and...Start treating him like a person. I've been going through animal behavior research papers and a lot of his behavior is on par or even greater than the great apes and elephants. We also need to figure out how to keep him from being bored, because I absolutely agree that's the root of his issues." 

Rowan looked to Murder who seemed to have dozed off. "I agree. I mean, think about it. He's used to roaming around this massive island and now he's basically stuck in a tiny box...And he's by himself. We don't know if he was part of a pack or not." He didn't think there had been one. Murder had shown up by himself and never mentioned any others....But that didn't mean anything since he knew next to nothing about the guy.

After a moment, Rowan moved to get up but yelped in sudden surprise when Murder moved his head and shoved him back down. Then, he opened his eyes and huffed before nosing at Rowan’s hand. Kaitlyn laughed.

“I think he’s saying that you don’t have his permission to leave.”

“Not funny.” Rowan sent the blue haired doctor a dirty look. “Fuckin’ fine. Get my iPad so I can watch a movie or something.”

Still laughing, Kaitlyn turned around and left to go to the break room. A few moments later, she returned and held out the device for Rowan. It took a moment to convince Murder to let him up, but soon he had settled back down next to the raptor.

“Go on, I’ll let myself out…Or I’ll get ate. At least with the second option I won’t have to listen to Jerry and his shitty jokes.”

Both Owen and Kaitlyn seemed to hesitate, but knew that if Alpha wanted to turn on Rowan, there was little that either of them could do. Finally, they both left with Owen wishing Rowan good luck. Once they had gone, he started flipping through his apps till he found the Netflix app. There, he brought up a series he’d been watching and blinked a few times when Murder investigated the screen with an inquisitive sound.

Well, maybe he had just found something to help. “It’s a scifi series about ninja vampires in space, and…”


End file.
